


Kings and Monsters and Men

by help_me_no



Series: Kings and Monsters and Men [1]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Other, Tragedy, reinterpretation of classical Greek myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28921146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/help_me_no/pseuds/help_me_no
Summary: The slaying of the minotaur. Decisions forced upon Theseus, Prince of Athens, decisions he makes of his own will, and the consequences of both. Sacrifices and kings and cruelty in different forms.A reinterpretation of the original myth. Not super Hades-specific.
Series: Kings and Monsters and Men [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125851
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	Kings and Monsters and Men

**Author's Note:**

> Hades made me like Theseus enough I had to reconcile the original myth to turn Theseus into someone understandable (if not necessarily good or forgivable). So while this pulls a little from some of the Hades’s characterization choices, it can be read entirely independent of the game. (Similarly, this loosely builds on some ideas in my other work, but is mostly separate.)
> 
> Long note at the end talking out some of my choices vis a vis interpretation of the classical myths.

“Stand, foul beast, and face me, for I shall have your head for the death of my kinsmen!”

Theseus says it out of habit, out of show, out of bravado, because the labyrinth is dark and the shadowy shape before him is huge and there’s something building in his chest anyone else would call fear. The smart move would be to sneak up unannounced, but to approach an enemy he knows nothing of unprepared is foolish, and the contradiction leaves his head reeling.

He has so few options here.

So he shouts his intentions and his frustrations as if the beast is a man and as if they can have an honorable fight.

But then the creature turns. When Theseus first came upon it, it was a dark, oddly shaped silhouette, and when he hefted the torch Ariadne had given him, its muscles and pelt and strange protrusions caught the flickering light in ways that Theseus’s mind could not comprehend as a single connected body. But it turns, and the strange shapes resolve themselves—the spikes are two arching horns and the lumps and curves are the contours of an oddly human back in an incomprehensible size, hunched over on itself.

For a moment, Theseus is struck with a strange thought, reminded of the way small children cower in the dark.

And it meets his eyes, and Theseus doesn’t think much of anything. It’s so clearly intelligent, and its eyes assess him with a slow blink. It’s—it’s a _cow_. Or a cow’s head at least, he realizes belatedly. This is the beast? Above, in the palace, all had whispered of the monstrous creature. Ariadne and her younger sister Phaedra had sat outside the cell caging Theseus and the other Athenians, until it was time to throw Theseus into the labyrinth, and in whispers, Ariadne had admitted to an unholy union between their mother and a great animal their father refused to sacrifice. Theseus had put no further thought into it, cupping Ariadne’s pretty cheek warmly, and promising her he would not fail, but—well. He supposes it makes sense, that it was a bull to be sacrificed, and thus that this beast would look such. But...

He thinks of the fields that spread out around Troezen in his childhood. He thinks of green fields and warm sunlight and his mother combing his hair as they watch the cattle graze. He thinks of the meadows of delicate clover, and his mother leaning down to whisper that the cattle loved the sweet flowers, and if he wanted to know a secret, it was that they loved sweet things in general. He looks at this thing before him, hulking and huge, as it begins to rise, and rise, and rise, towering overhead, and instead he remembers his mother lifting him so he might pluck an apple from a tree.

Theseus remembers his mother carefully slicing the apple with a small knife, and he is glad Ariadne could not steal him a sword, despite her tearful apologies, because he doesn’t think he could hold a blade now if he tried. He stares up at the beast—the minotaur they had called it—and he thinks of being a tiny child, staring up at a massive bull, shaking in fear while his mother laughed behind him, and held his palm open in hers, offering the animal the small slices of fruit.

This can’t be right.

There is blood on its muzzle and bones scattered around the chamber and corpses wearing textiles Theseus knows are Athenian, but all he can hear is his heart beating out a constant tempo of _this isn’t right this isn’t right this isn’t right_.

And that is before the thing speaks.

“Your... kinsmen?”

It’s slow and halting, but clearly speech, and Theseus feels like he has been kicked in the chest. The creature tips its head in obvious contemplation, and Theseus doesn’t know what to do. The voice is deep, and it rumbles beneath his feet the same way roars had shaken the floors of the palace above.

Theseus had stood before King Minos, pledged to kill this monster, and Minos had scoffed. A bellow had emerged from below them, as if in answer, and then Minos only laughed and laughed and laughed while his soldiers trembled in fear. That night, locked in a cage, the other Athenian youths sent as sacrifice had wept while the walls shook around them. And now it speaks.

It looks down at the corpses, then back to Theseus. “Kinsmen... because they are also men, like you, and I am not?”

Theseus, still trying to process that the minotaur speaks, is startled into an answer.

“In that they are Athenians!”

The minotaur tips its huge head again.

“These men... are not of Crete?”

“King Minos demands a sacrifice of seven young men and seven young women of Athens, once every year.”

“And you are... also of Athens?”

Theseus nods, still bewildered.

The bull blinks slowly, long eyelashes catching the light, and lowers its head.

“For that, I am sorry.”

“I—what?”

The minotaur looks back up, staring straight into Theseus’s eyes, and he can’t help the tremble that runs down his spine and through his limbs.

“I am sorry my father chooses to send me your people. Could that I control it... I would.”

There is a long pause.

“But I cannot.”

The creature fully stands—How was it not already standing? How can it possibly be even taller than before?

“And I must eat.”

It advances, and Theseus forces back the fear, squares his shoulders, and answers back: “And I must survive, stop you, and return to Athens! So we are at an unfortunate impasse!”

It halts in its advance, and blinks yet again.

Theseus can’t help staring at the glassy wetness of its eyes, the long eyelashes, the careful consideration with which it looks at him. He thinks, once more, of that field outside Troezen, and the gentleness with which a bull ate slices of apple from his hand.

Before he can think it through, he finds himself asking, “And you... do not eat anything else? Besides the flesh of men?”

It answers slowly. “I have never been given anything else. I am told this is what a monster eats, and I must survive, so I eat.”

It looks at Theseus one last time, then rolls its own shoulders, bows his head, and braces itself for a fight.

“I will not apologize for what I must do to survive, nor will I begrudge you what you must do,” it says. And then it charges.

Theseus gets swept away in the rush of a good fight. He rarely engages in a fight without first acquainting himself with his foe, but that was not an option here, and the strength and skill displayed leaves him breathless. The minotaur is incredible—Theseus has fought both men and beasts and the minotaur could easily best each one. At one point, the minotaur slams Theseus so hard into the hard ground that his teeth rattle in his head and he’s not sure if all his ribs are intact, and Theseus can’t help but throw his head back with a laugh.

It startles the minotaur, who stumbles back a few steps, and Theseus uses the chance to stagger to his feet. He wraps one hand around his side as he catches his breath and his chest heaves—no broken ribs, but very badly bruised—and beams at the minotaur.

“Incredible! I have never fought any like you, and I do not think I ever will.” He beams at the minotaur. It—he—snorts, and an ear flicks. Theseus wishes he knew what that meant.

“Well then, shall we resume?” Theseus asks.

Another snort, and then, “Very well.”

It’s a rush, it’s a high like Theseus has never felt. It feels like it lasts hours, and all his muscles ache and his lungs burns and he can’t stop laughing.

And then he has his arms wrapped around the minotaur’s neck from behind and he is squeezing and his dropped torch catches the bright red of a spool of thread and Theseus’s stomach plummets. The minotaur bucks and thrashes in his grasp, a cruel parody of a sport Theseus has witnessed other youths engage in. And Theseus closes his eyes and is glad he does not have to face the minotaur and look into his intelligent eyes as he squeezes and squeezes and squeezes.

The minotaur finally stills, and Theseus does not relent even then. Only when the torch threatens to finally burn out does he let go. Around him lay the corpses of the Athenians sent before, stripped to the bone, and Theseus thinks _They were just meat_. And Theseus looks down at the body before him and thinks _And now he is just meat too_.

Theseus dutifully follows Ariadne’s thread back out of the labyrinth. When he emerges, she flings herself into his arms, weeping with joy. The kiss she presses to his mouth, which had been as sweet as apples and honey when given as a goodbye, now tastes like ash.

She takes him by the hand and leads him back to the cell where the other Athenians are kept, and where her sister Phaedra stands, holding a key. Many of Theseus’s companions were clearly too frightened to sleep, and they leap up at the sight of him, frantically waking the others, smothering shocked laughter into their hands.

They flee through the twisting chambers of the palace with the two princesses as a guide, and Theseus wonders if Minos built this labyrinth to trap his daughters the same way he built one below to trap his wife’s son. He jerks to a stop before a decorative sword, and it must yank Ariadne’s arm painfully, where their hands are clasped, because she looks back at him, startled. But Theseus isn’t looking at her. He looks at the blade, encrusted in gold and jewels, and he thinks of Minos’ face as he sat on his throne and laughed. He thinks of _“I have never been given anything else. I am told this is what a monster eats, and I must survive, so I eat”_ spoken in the darkness, and of sunshine and clover and cattle. He pictures the cold flat green of the king’s eyes, and he looks at the sword—decorative, but still sharp.

And then Ariadne tugs his hand, and clasps his cheek, and begs him to hurry, because Minos will surely kill his own daughters if he discovers their betrayal. Phaedra’s hand clasps Ariadne’s on her other side, and the two look at him, while the other Athenians continue to run past. Ariadne’s eyes are a bright, glittering green, and Phaedra’s are a cool gray and hysterically Theseus thinks of the sea in the sun and the sea beneath a storm and—(What color were the minotaur’s eyes? In the dark of the labyrinth, Theseus could not tell.)

Their ship stops at an island, when they are confident none from Crete follow in pursuit. Naxos, Ariadne informs the Athenians. Exhausted, Theseus collapses next to the others in the sand, and falls into a deep sleep. When he wakes, the other Athenians are readying the ship to leave. They are clearly not the noble youths Athens was supposed to send, something Theseus has been aware of since he was first sent on this voyage beside them. He had paid it no mind prior, and in fact, had been glad. They know labor and they know ships and they know the sea and Theseus’s own childhood in Troezen shared more in common with them than it had with the noble children of great Athens.

He is still glad, both for the kinship and the simple fact that it would be impossible to sail back to Athens with a crew of nobles. But Theseus thinks of how the father he barely knows had wept and begged for Theseus not to go; how King Aegeus had told Theseus to simply let another young man be sent to be devoured, that there was no need for Athens’ new prince to fight. The knowledge sits heavy in his throat.

One of the girls informs him the princesses had sequestered themselves further up the beach. Another girl laughs that the princesses thought they were too good to lay on the sand. One of the boys counters that Theseus is a prince, and he slept beside them—it’s not a matter of royalty, but that Crete thinks themselves better than Athens. It’s why Minos demanded Athens sacrifice their youths, instead of his own, after all.

Theseus laughs hollowly with them, and then offers to fetch the princesses himself.

Ariadne is still asleep, but Phaedra sits awake beside her, and she stares silently at Theseus as he approaches.

And when Theseus looks down at the sleeping Ariadne he sees the fall of long dark eyelashes on her cheeks and he doesn’t let himself imagine what he wants to see when those eyes open. Instead he takes Phaedra’s hand and walks her back to the ship and does not wake Ariadne.

Phaedra says nothing. A few of the other Athenians raise their eyebrows, but Ariadne is not the one who sat by their cell all night, and Ariadne is not the one who stole the key, and so they load up the ship and they leave Naxos behind.

On the ship, as they drift in the dark, taking a rest from the rowing, some of the younger Athenians grab Phaedra’s hands and pull her up into a dance. Most of the Athenian youths chosen are closer to Theseus (and Ariadne)’s age—young adults, mostly settled into themselves and their bodies. But there’s a few who, like Phaedra, still cling to that teenage-awkwardness, despite only a few years difference. Their limbs are a little too long and their muscles gather unevenly, and despite Phaedra’s quiet, serious eyes, she stumbles over her feet just the same, and is startled into a laugh when one of the boys spins so much his dizziness topples him to the deck.

The ship returns to Athens and Theseus forgets to replace their black sails with white and King Aegeus throws himself into the sea with grief for a son he does not really know. Theseus thinks of kings and sacrifices and he does not mourn.

Years later, when Theseus clasps Phaedra’s hands in marriage, and stares into her gray eyes, part of him wonders if she inherited them from her mother. Minos and Ariadne both had green eyes, and Theseus had never met Queen Pasiphae. He does not ask himself why he thinks of this. Instead he closes his own eyes, and kisses his new wife. He does not think of it again.

**Author's Note:**

> Theseus is typically one of my most hated characters in classical Greek myth, but I actually really enjoyed writing this and finding a way to make him somewhat understandable and sympathetic, despite his terrible shitty choices.
> 
> Not to get Too Classical Myth Literary Analysis but I found I had to shift from the traditional Prince And King And Hero Theseus, to a Theseus who could’ve easily had a fairly normal childhood, and act that out in contrast to King Minos (and to a lesser extent, King Aegeus). Even with royal lineage on his mother’s side as well, I figured it was still fair play to work with a Theseus who lived very separately from the other kings: Troezen being a much smaller city, his father being kept a secret, and King Pittheus—his maternal grandfather—giving up on maintaining Troezen’s monarchy (in favor of secretly continuing the Athenian royal lineage).
> 
> (There’s things that could be said about King Pittheus too, that informed a lot of my decisions here regarding kings and cruelty and selfish sacrifices and a disregard for others, even if I didn’t write them out. It was too much of a whole separate, heavy thing to go into my niche personal interpretation of Theseus’s conception, and how the choices Pittheus made regarding his daughter Aethra and King Aegeus reek of very dubious consent and coercion and obligation. Maybe someday I’ll explore it because I think there’s so much to Aethra that gets completely missed. I also do see the irony in saying that but never actually using her name in this work.)
> 
> Also, yes, figs would be a little more geographically and historically accurate than apples but they’re small and their trees are short and that ruins both the slicing and being lifted to pick them.


End file.
